


Moment of Quiet

by remembermyfic



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, F/M, Rule 63, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 05:57:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17156513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remembermyfic/pseuds/remembermyfic
Summary: “It’s snowing.”“It does that in the winter,” he says and it is kind of worth it for the eye roll he gets.“Throwing my words back at me is not cute, Matthews.”He chuckles a little, lets himself throw an arm around her shoulders. It’s still chill, no feelings here. “I’m always cute.”





	Moment of Quiet

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all know the drill by now. You know someone mentioned or are someone mentioned turn back now for your own mental health. Thanks. 
> 
> Part of the advent calendar sent to J, S and K. Thank you for the year of free therapy.

It starts while they’re in practice and utterly ruins Auston’s day. He gets it: he’s in Toronto, which is in Canada, and it snows in Canada. That doesn’t mean he has to like it, by any extent of the imagination. It makes a mess of the city, makes everything wet and slushy and brings with it the damp cold that sits in his bones.

When he steps out of the MasterCard Centre into the fluttering flakes, he swears.

Zoe, on the other hand, gasps.

He whips around to see her eyes wide and shining, her face spread in one of the widest grins he’s ever seen on her face. “What?”

“It’s snowing.”

She says it with the same level of awe and reverence that equals the frustration coursing through him and Auston really needs to find a more productive way of dealing with his feelings for Zoe than the way his fingers twitch with how much he wants to reach for her.

“It does that in the winter,” he says and it is kind of worth it for the eye roll he gets.

“Throwing my words back at me is not cute, Matthews.”

He chuckles a little, lets himself throw an arm around her shoulders. It’s still chill, no feelings here. “I’m always cute.”

There’s a moment where time stops and Auston kind of thinks _what if_ , but it passes in a blink, Zoe shrugging his arm from her shoulders and breaking his heart.

Not that he’s dramatic.

“It’s a thing, okay?” she says, and now she sounds a bit defensive. Auston is not a fan of defensive Zoe, and it really hadn’t been his intention. Before he can respond, she’s barreling on: “For one thing, it’s like, the most famous Gilmore Girls episode. Lorelai wakes Rory up to see the first snow, every single year.”

“Didn’t take you for a Gilmore Girls fan.”

She fixes him with a look that tells him it was maybe more traumatic than she could ever let on. “Connor loves it. It would be embarrassing if he hadn’t gotten the whole damn Marlies to watch the series, start to finish, on roadies last season.”

Auston doesn’t like thinking of Zoe’s time on the Marlies. She speaks of it fondly, and he’s glad for that, both in her development – because he wants people to know how underrated she is as a player, as _his_ winger, fuck you Tavares – and in her friendships, but that doesn’t mean he’s not weirdly upset that she ‘toiled in the minors’ as long as she did. She’s too good for the AHL, in his entirely unbiased opinion.

“Second, can’t you hear it?”

Auston goes silent and still, tries to hear what she can. “Hyms, I-“

“It’s the silence,” she cuts in. “It’s like being underwater. The sounds are all muted.”

He tries, he swears, but he can still hear the cards on Kipling, loud and clear, the swishing of the doors to the arena. So, very carefully, he says, “Is this one of those things they teach you in college?”

She rolls her eyes and Auston knows he’s said exactly the wrong thing. He does it so often with her. Zoe has always been the unassuming type, and there are plenty of things he hates he forgets. He hates feeling like he’s just put his foot in it.

And yes, okay, it’s worse with Zoe. Zoe, whom he always wants to impress, the quiet woman who works harder than anyone he’s ever met, and has a freaking book deal on the side. It’s not that she’s too good for him – for one, she’d kill him for saying so, for another, she’d tell him, “well you’re _Auston Matthews_ ” and that’s not what it’s about at all – but he is aware enough to know there are some differences between them. Differences that feel significant.

“Hey.” He jolts when she nudges him and it irritates him all the more to realize she’s a little worried and a lot confused by something. Zoe can read him like her favourite book and it’s both annoying and endearing. He likes that she’s taken the time to learn about him.

“It’s nothing,” he says, and hates himself again when he’s met with silence. Zoe doesn’t push. She’s not like Mitchy. Mitchy is annoying and persistent and Auston routinely has to text Dylan Strome, for his own sanity. Zoe is different. Zoe respects personal space and boundaries and Auston has never hated that respect more.

“You like the snow?” he finds himself blurting before she heads off toward her car and away from him.

Zoe hums a little and watches him. “Yes.” Then, after a moment, like she’s throwing him a bone, she says, “Want to learn why?”

Auston has to take a deep breath so he doesn’t just blurt out an affirmative. “Yes.”

A little smile blooms on Zoe’s face and Auston wonders for the millionth time why the hell he cannot keep his chill around this woman. “We’re going for a walk.”

They’ve just finished practice, Auston can feel the exhaustion creeping into his bones but when Zoe starts off along the street, Auston follows. Of course he follows. Teasing aside, it’s Zoe and Auston always feels like she’s some perfect enigma. He’ll take any opportunity to learn about her, shut up Willy.

The walk isn’t long, and even Auston is able to admit the little cottages they pass on the nearby college campus look pretty in the snow, but as they move on, further south, he realizes, there’s something different in the air. It’s not Zoe and it’s not his feelings, but Auston can feel the shift. There’s a silence, a kind of deafness to the air around them with the snow coming down, barely broken by their footfalls in particularly heavy patches of snow. She leads them on and on until he’s kind of wondering if she even has a stop in mind. Then they turn a corner in the trees and Auston catches a glimpse of the snow falling over the water. They stand in silence for a few moments before Zoe points out across the lake.

“You can see the CN Tower on a clear day, all of downtown,” she says.

He hums a little and glances down at her. “How did you find this place?”

“It was kind of an accident,” she replies with a bit of a laugh still looking out over the water. “I can’t remember if I was frustrated or just needed a breath of fresh air but I kind of just started walking.”

Auston nods. He gets that, the need to just move without a purpose when his head is too full. “And this is why you like the snow?”

“No,” she says, and there’s that slow, cautious feeling to her words again, the kind of feeling he kind of wishes he could legitimately fight, on or off the ice, superstar hands be damned. “Did you hear it? Walking here?”

He pauses a beat, just to hear it again without the sound of their feet this time. “The quiet.”

Surprise flits over her face, the kind of split second expression that makes him think it was entirely involuntary. It hurts a little, stings because he can understand it. She makes him dumb, which is in and of itself, dumb. Auston’s aware enough to acknowledge these things. It’s a constant mantra in his head.

“Yeah.” And wow, _wow,_ she sounds breathless and his imagination goes haywire despite himself, thinking of all of the other ways he could make her sound like that.

“It’s nice,” he says finally. “Different.”

She’s still not looking at him, but there’s a little smile replacing the surprise, a curve to her mouth that he wants so desperately to kiss. “The world is loud.”

It’s metaphorical, but it’s also far from incorrect. If anyone knows how loud the world is, it’s him, with the articles and the fact that he can’t google his name without hundreds of thousands of hits on articles, half of which are ridiculous.

“Too loud sometimes,” she goes on, with maybe too much awareness. “So, there’s hockey and there’s just quiet. That’s what snow means to me.”

It feels so easy to reach for her, to weave his huge fingers between hers. The muted quiet makes her inhale all the more audible, despite the way Auston can hear his frantic heartbeat.

“Auston-“

“You’re amazing,” he blurts because for all his chill, he is a genuine hot mess. “Zoe.”

She’s watching him, searching, and Auston has no idea what his face looks like. It must be enough, it must be something because her hand tightens in hers. “Auston.”

He does feel the smile stretch across his face, the helpless wide one that Zoe once told him was his best smile and she wished he felt like he could show it more. “Let’s get coffee.”

She huffs and rolls her eyes, but this time there’s so much affection there. “It’s not even that cold.”

“No. Zoe. Let’s get _coffee_.”

It takes her a moment to clue in, but her eyes shine. “You can say ‘date’ you know. Like an adult.”

Pleasure zips up his spine. “Let’s go on a date.”

She looks beautiful when she grins and says, “Okay.”


End file.
